The Lady of the Rivers

Jacquetta always has had the gift of second sight. As a child visiting her uncle, she met his prisoner, Joan of Arc, and saw her own power reflected in the young woman accused of witchcraft. They share the mystery of the tarot card of the wheel of fortune before Joan is taken to a horrific death. Jacquetta understands the danger for a woman who dares to dream. Jacquetta is married to the Duke of Bedford, English regent of France, and he introduces her to a mysterious world of learning and alchemy.

The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen and the King's Mother

In her essay on Jacquetta, Philippa Gregory uses original documents, archaeology and histories of myth and witchcraft to create the first-ever biography of the young duchess who was to survive two reigns and two wars to become the first lady at two rival courts. David Baldwin, established author on the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the first commoner to marry a king of England for love, and Michael Jones, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes of Margaret Beaufort, the almost-unknown matriarch of the House of Tudor. The Women of the Cousins’ War will appeal to all.

Wideacre: Wideacre, Book 1

Philippa Gregory's first story in the best-selling Wideacre trilogy. A compelling tale of passion and intrigue set in the 18th century. From the author of The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin's Lover. Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the 18th century, she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others.

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici: A Novel

In this brilliantly imagined novel, acclaimed author C. W. Gortner brings Catherine to life in her own voice, allowing us to enter the intimate world of a woman whose determination to protect her family’s throne and realm plunged her into a lethal struggle for power. From the fairy-tale chateaux of the Loire Valley to the battlefields of the wars of religion to the mob-filled streets of Paris, this is the extraordinary untold journey of one of the most maligned and misunderstood women ever to be queen.

The Life of Elizabeth I

The New York Times best-selling author of The Six Wives of Henry VIII and The War of the Roses, historian Alison Weir crafts fascinating portraits of England’s infamous House of Tudor line. Here Weir focuses on Elizabeth I, also known as the Virgin Queen, who ascended to the throne at age 25 and never married, yet ruled for 44 years and steered England into its Golden Age.

Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey

The child of a scheming father and ruthless mother, Lady Jane Grey is born during a time when ambition dictates action. Cousin to Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, she is merely a pawn in a political and religious game in which one false step means a certain demise. But Lady Jane has remarkable qualities that help her to withstand the constant pressures of the royal machinery far better than most expect.

The Vatican Princess: A Novel of Lucrezia Borgia

Glamorous and predatory, the Borgias fascinated and terrorized 15th-century Renaissance Italy, and Lucrezia Borgia, beloved daughter of the pope, was at the center of the dynasty's ambitions. Slandered as a heartless seductress who lured men to their doom, was she in fact the villainess of legend, or was she trapped in a familial web, forced to choose between loyalty and survival?

The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas

From New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir comes the first biography of Mary Douglas, the beautiful, cunning niece of Henry VIII of England who used her sharp intelligence and covert power to influence the succession after the death of Elizabeth I.

A Dangerous Inheritance

Historian and New York Times best-selling author Alison Weir is acclaimed for her absorbing works about the infamous House of York and House of Tudor lines. In A Dangerous Inheritance, Weir uses her wealth of knowledge to craft a compelling novel about two women, living 70 years apart, who are linked through the mysterious disappearance of King Richard III's nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury - also known as the Princes in the Tower.

The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel

Best-selling author Alison Weir turns her masterly storytelling skills to the early life of young Elizabeth Tudor, who would grow up to become England's most intriguing and powerful queen. Sweeping in scope, The Lady Elizabeth is a fascinating portrayal of a woman far ahead of her time - whose dangerous and dramatic path to the throne shapes her future greatness.

The Summer Queen: Eleanor of Aquitaine Trilogy, Book 1

Eleanor of Aquitaine's story deserves to be legendary. She is an icon who has fascinated readers for over 800 years. But the real Eleanor remains elusive - until now. Based on the most up-to-date research, award-winning novelist Elizabeth Chadwick brings Eleanor's magnificent story to life, as never before, unveiling the real Eleanor. Young, golden-haired and blue-eyed Eleanor has everything to look forward to as the heiress to wealthy Aquitaine.

Katherine: A Novel

Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the classic romance Katherine features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets - Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II - who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king's son, falls passionately in love with the already married Katherine.

Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen

The lives of Henry VIII's queens make for dramatic stories, and Alison Weir writes a series of novels that offer insights into the real lives of the six wives based on extensive research and new theories. In all the romancing, has anyone regarded the evidence that Anne Boleyn did not love Henry VIII? Or that Prince Arthur, Katherine of Aragon's first husband, who is said to have loved her, in fact cared so little for her that he willed his personal effects to his sister?

Sisters of Treason

Early in Mary Tudor's turbulent reign, Lady Catherine and Lady Mary Grey are reeling after the brutal execution of their elder seventeen-year-old sister, Lady Jane Grey, and the succession is by no means stable. In Sisters of Treason, Elizabeth Freemantle brings these young women to life in a spellbinding Tudor tale of love and politics.

Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World

Many are familiar with the story of the much-married King Henry VIII of England and the celebrated reign of his daughter, Elizabeth I. But it is often forgotten that the life of the first Tudor queen, Elizabeth of York, Henry's mother and Elizabeth's grandmother, spanned one of England' s most dramatic and perilous periods. Now New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir presents the first modern biography of this extraordinary woman.

Changeling: Order of Darkness, Book 1

The year is 1492. Sixteen-year-old Titus Devere is thrown out of his religious order after proving that a divine revelation (blood streaming from a religious icon) was a fake, using his knowledge of Moorish science. He is brilliant and gorgeous but, cast as a heretic, he is sent to the Vatican in Rome where he expects to be punished or executed. Instead he is recruited into a secret order investigating strange occurrences across Europe. Known as The Order of the Dragon, it is headed up by a mysterious man with a tattoo of a coiled dragon on his arm.

The Rival Queens: Catherine de' Medici, Her Daughter Marguerite de Valois, and the Betrayal That Ignited a Kingdom

Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for 30 years. Her youngest daughter, Marguerite, the glamorous "Queen Margot," was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control.

America's First Daughter: A Novel

In a compelling, richly researched novel that draws from thousands of letters and original sources, best-selling authors Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tell the fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph - a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy.

Excellent Women

Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a mild-mannered spinster in 1950s England. She is one of those excellent women - the smart, supportive, repressed women whom men take for granted. As Mildred gets embroiled in the lives of her new neighbors - anthropologist Helena Napier; Helen's handsome, dashing husband, Rocky; and Julian Malory, the vicar next door - the novel presents a series of snapshots of human life as actually, and pluckily, lived.

Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine

Renowned for her highly acclaimed and bestselling British histories, Alison Weir has in recent years made a major impact on the fiction scene with her novels about Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. In this latest offering, she imagines the world of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the beautiful twelfth-century woman who was queen of France until she abandoned her royal husband for the younger man who would become king of England.

The Virgin's Daughter: Tudor Legacy, Book 1

Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir, The Virgin's Daughter is the first book in a captivating new saga about the next generation of Tudor royals, which poses the thrilling question: What if Elizabeth I, the celebrated Virgin Queen, gave birth to a legitimate heir?

The Mists of Avalon

A posthumous recipient of the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, Marion Zimmer Bradley reinvented - and rejuvenated - the King Arthur mythos with her extraordinary Mists of Avalon series. In this epic work, Bradley follows the arc of the timeless tale from the perspective of its previously marginalized female characters: Celtic priestess Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar, and High Priestess Viviane.

Lost Among the Living

England, 1921. Three years after her husband, Alex, disappeared, shot down over Germany, Jo Manders still mourns his loss. Working as a paid companion to Alex's wealthy, condescending aunt, Dottie Forsyth, Jo travels to Wych Elm House, the family's estate in the Sussex countryside. But there is much she never knew about her husband's origins...and the revelation of a mysterious death in the Forsyths' past is just the beginning.

Victoria: A Novel

Early one morning, less than a month after her 18th birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died, and she is now queen of England. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world. Surely she must rely on her mother and her venal advisor, Sir John Conroy, or her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, who are all too eager to relieve her of the burdens of power.

Publisher's Summary

Two women competing for a man's heart....

Two queens fighting to the death for dominance...

Here is the untold story of Mary Queen of Scots, in which New York Times best-selling author Philippa Gregory presents a new and unique view of one of history's most intriguing, romantic, and maddening heroines. Biographers often neglect the captive years of Mary Queen of Scots, who trusted Queen Elizabeth's promise of sanctuary when she fled from rebels in Scotland and then found herself imprisoned as the "guest" of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick.

The newly married couple welcome the doomed queen into their home, certain that serving as her hosts and jailors will bring them an advantage in the cutthroat world of the Elizabethan court. To their horror, they find that the task will bankrupt them, and as their home becomes the epicenter of intrigue and rebellion against Elizabeth, their loyalty to each other and to their sovereign comes into question. If Mary succeeded in seducing the Earl, or if the great spy master William Cecil linked them to the growing conspiracy to free Mary from her illegal imprisonment, they will all face the headsman.

Heralded as "the queen of royal fiction" by USA Today, Philippa Gregory uses new research and her passion for historical accuracy to place a well-known heroine in a completely new story full of suspense, passion, and political intrigue. The Other Queen is the result of her determination to present a story worthy of this extraordinary heroine.

I am a huge Phillipa Gregory fan but sadly this particular title did not live up to the high expectation I had. There were three narrators and of the three I truly only enjoyed one of the three narrators whilst the story, though interesting just lacked something for me.

The Other Queen follows the life of Mary, Queen of Scots during her imprisonment leading up to her death. As much as Mary's storyline is a real focal point, a rather fascinating storyline also includes Bess and her husband George Talbot. The three weaves a rather interesting relationship especially when you add Queen Elizabeth as well as William Cecil.

It's mostly a typical Phillipa Gregory type novel with the intrigue, love and treachery. You find yourself both disliking and liking all of the main characters at one point or another whilst seriously disliking both Queen Elizabeth and William Cecil. Cecil's character was definitely not spared during this conversation and as for the main characters they all seem to have at least one fundamental fault that makes them particularly difficult to like completely.

The narration though was what killed it for me. I found Ron Keith (the voice of George Talbot) so completely infuriating that I honestly wanted to just skip through his sections completely. He truly sounded like a whimpering school boy to me throughout the whole entire book. The voice of Mary was done relatively well while the voice of Bess had it moments for me.... and no all these moments were of a positive nature.

Overall the book is able to serve up what you have mostly come to expect from Phillipa Gregory. But as a whole it seems to be lacking a little bit in terms of the storyline whilst the narration for me just made it all the worse in my vantage point. It's an 'OK' listen for me, but nothing to write home about.

The last of seven volumes in this Tudor Series. Explores in detail sixteen years of Mary Queen of Scott's imprisonment and her relationship with Shrewsbury, her 'host' and eventual jailer. Really impressed me with the vast amount of detail that I felt that I became acquainted with the Scottish Queen. A Queen whom I had previously always admired and pitied.

However after reading 'The Othe Queen' I really felt that she was a manipulator, lacked compassion, was totally heartless and would definitely NOT be someone that I would care to meet.

Felt that the narration was a little 'whiney' however other than that it was most enjoyable.

I have been listening through the Tudor Series after having listened through the Cousin's War series and found this book full of information re Mary Queen of Scots which is never discussed. I also found the fact that Elizabeth 1 was highly influenced by her advisor Cecil. Who knew that it was he who truly ruled the country.

I compare this book to The Red Queen. Both books contain characters that can be abrasive and borderline annoying. Its enjoyable to expand ones imagination beyond the historical characters whom we admire.

What did you like best about The Other Queen? What did you like least?

The various characters are always well developed and true to themselves in Philippa Gregory's novels. This time; however, the characters repeat themselves and their thoughts over and over and over. It moved much slower than her other books in this series.

If you’ve listened to books by Philippa Gregory before, how does this one compare?

I still enjoyed the book from the historical standpoint, and she definitely got across what the politics and lives of the people of England were during this period. It also illustrates how society had to deal with changing times. I enjoyed Bess's "self made woman" approach to life. She, too, was an example of how society was in transition from royal and noble rule to people rising in status due to cleverness and hard work.

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Bress remains my favorite and the character I was rooting for, but her husband was soooo noble and lost in his love and concern as well as caught up in the change of status for the nobles that my heart felt for him as well.

Did The Other Queen inspire you to do anything?

I will use this book to reinforce what life was like in England during this time frame with my fifth grade class. It is so difficult for them to understand just how trapped women of that time were as well as all the political plots which can be applied to politics just about anywhere and any time.

Any additional comments?

Philippa Gregory is a master at making history interesting. I am basically a fan of mysteries and detective novels. She fits this genre as well as historical fiction.

What a shocking tale of misinformation! I enjoyed all the books in this series, though the the Virgin's Lover was not her best. But this one is downright awful. Gregory doesn't like Elizabeth Tudor and has gone to great lengths to change her readers good impressions. To that end, I assume she left out the real story of Mary Stewart. To make her a victim of Elizabeth.

I'm so annoyed at the misinformation, or rather lack of information, on which the story begins. Specifically the murderous actions of the Scots Queen BEFORE she ran to England. Evidence is pretty clear that Mary was complicit with her lover in killing her husband. It's shocking to see Philippa Gregory change history so dramatically. Mary Stewart was no innocent. But that isn't the worst part.

The worst part is the 3 characters chosen to tell the tale. They are uninteresting nobodies and the Scots Queen. The story is dead from the beginning. Where is the tension? Why not have Cecil or Elizabeth's POV? Boring! Plus the narration is AWFUL! Truly terrible!

Bad narrators for boring characters plus a story based on historical misinformation yields the worst all-around audiobook of all Philippa Gregory's work!